Tag: kidnapping

Sadie shivered in the falling snow, hands dug deep in the pockets of her mangy leopard print coat, hungrily eyeing the cars curb-crawling the Strip. Music boomed inside the titty bar behind her, the black tinted window quaking to the bass. She’d danced there herself when she first hit the Strip, before she was busted turning tricks between lap dances to feed her habit. Now she was lucky if they let her inside to slam back a shot to wash away the taste of her last john.

An ancient green station wagon tootled up to the curb, the exhaust farting fumes.… Read the rest

The boys looked a lot different since the last time I saw them. They should have; it’d been almost ten years. Reed was twelve now, sandy-haired, the first hint of his old man’s barrel chest beginning to show. Leo, eleven months younger, Irish twins, tall and rangy, his mother’s son in every way.

They took turns pushing each other on the swing set, then got a little more ballsy, jumping off of the swing at the top of its arc, crash-landing on their knees, laughing, doing it again.… Read the rest

We all dream of escaping sometimes — but there’s more than one way to get away.

The big cab was pushing forty when he slammed on the brakes. The car skidded to an icy stop in front of her, its mammoth bumper nodding gently against her knees. He pulled his foot out of the floorboards and cursed. She walked alongside the car, tugged open the rear door, and slid in.

“Lady, I’m off-duty. You gotta … get out.” He wasn’t steeped in subtleties.

“Light’s on, bub.”

“What?” He checked the dashboard and saw that she was right. His heavy face wrinkled in anger.… Read the rest

When a job seems to be easy money, maybe what you were hired for isn’t exactly why you’re there.

I was sitting at a bar, drinking another Black Label, when the man came up to me. I should have known he was bad news, a fellow like that with his nice suit, in a low-rent bar like the one I was in that day. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was that I was still basically a kid, only twenty years old, but I didn’t twig to it.

“I hear you’re looking for work, Lawrence,” he said, lowering himself gently onto the stool next to mine.… Read the rest